Hello listeners.
Today is May 21st, 2025.
Welcome to Social Skills Coaching, where you become more likeable, more charismatic, and more productive.
Today's featured book is How to Listen with Intention, the foundation of true connection, communication, and relationships by Patrick King.
This is book number seven in the How to Be More Likeable and Charismatic book series.
Today's episode is chapter one.
Unleash your superpower.
Deep listening for powerful relationships.
In this episode, we're going to delve into the art of effective communication and explore why listening should take center stage.
You should know that talking provides similar neurological stimulation to sex.
It's true.
Yet despite this natural inclination toward expression, we'll discover why it's essential to cultivate a deeper listening practice for stronger relationships.
We'll discuss how listening can make you appear more charismatic and engaging in surprising paradoxes.
We'll navigate the subtle challenges of conversational narcissism and explore the power of vocabulary choices in shaping connections.
Additionally, we'll tackle common obstacles like pre-judgments and boredom, offering strategies to transform interactions into fascinating exchanges.
And lastly, we're going to draw inspiration from late night talk show hosts, showcasing how they employ active listening techniques to engage their guests.
Stay with us as we uncover these powerful communication skills and empower you to perfect the art of listening for deeper, more meaningful connections.
Picture someone visiting a new therapist or counselor, and the dialogue they have in their first session.
The client is, quite naturally, feeling a little nervous and exposed, and is trying to find their feet—this is the first time they’ve done anything like this, and they’re not quite sure about how it all works.
Are they going to lie down on a couch and be asked about their attraction to their mother or father?
Will they uncover something traumatic from their past that they have blocked out?
They come into the room and the therapist invites them to sit.
The client sits and eventually the therapist invites them to talk, saying, “So, what’s brought you here today?”
“Well, it’s hard to say, actually,” says the client, who starts describing how they want to use therapy as a place to learn to be better, and not necessarily to fix anything that’s wrong.
“So, it seems like you’re not quite sure about what you want here,” says the therapist.
The client starts to wonder if they’re wasting this professional’s time.
“No, not exactly.
It’s just…I’m sorry, I don’t know how this goes.
I suppose you see a lot of people every day with real problems…”
“You don’t think your problems are real, then?”
“Um.
Hmm.
That’s not what I meant.
It’s not that I have…problems, it’s more like, I just want to be the best version of myself, you know?”
“It’s OK. There’s nothing to be ashamed about.
Seeking help for your problems doesn’t mean you’re weak, you know.”
The rest of the session carries on but the client has already decided, in this first two minutes, never to return to therapy again.
Why?
For those who are skilled listeners, the reason is probably obvious: the therapist did a really bad job of listening.
Did you catch it?
Let’s review.
Firstly, the therapist tells the client what they feel, without checking whether their interpretation is correct, or even wanted.
It’s a series of statements and assumptions rather than acceptance.
The therapist had their own version of events and conclusions likely before the patient even sat down.
How frustrating.
Rather than figuring out what exactly the client is experiencing, the therapist has some preconceived mold they’re forcing onto the conversation, completely ignoring what the client actually wants from them.
Sadly, this state of miscommunication and poor listening is more common than it first seems, and many people—perhaps like our therapist—will never even know the extent to which their listening techniques are just not working for them and those they’re speaking with.
This is a book about a skill that may be simple, but is certainly not easy.
Listening is at the heart of proper communication, which itself is at the heart of every meaningful connection you can have with another human being.
In other words, learning to listen matters!
If even trained therapists (whose true focus should be to listen and absorb and then provide feedback) can’t always hit the mark, then what chance do we stand?
Well, as always, learning and gaining the necessary skills is the first step, and that’s what this book provides.
Not being a deep listener doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.
Gaining self-awareness and understanding the “meta conversation” are skills like any other—meaning they can be learnt and improved upon, whoever you are.
In fact, lacking these skills means you’re quite normal, as the instinct we are all born with is to be somewhat self-centered.
And yet, some of us are naturally good listeners, but most people need a little deliberate effort to get there.
Some of us are only good at listening, and are terrible at telling stories to others or even expressing emotions.
However, unlike the way some of us are born taller, shorter, or with black or brown hair, listening is a quality that you have complete control over—starting now.
Being a good listener is not some grand charitable gesture, or a thing you do purely for the sake of other people.
When we actually engage with attention and thoughtfulness with another person’s world, everyone benefits, and we only enrich our own perspective.
It’s the quintessential win-win—even more than you might imagine.
At least, that’s the first important mindset shift you must make to be a better listener.
The True Win-Win
A large piece of the puzzle in creating a presence optimized for listening is the age-old piece of advice, popularized by Dale Carnegie and his famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Much of his advice is now derided as common sense, even though the very reason it’s deemed so obvious is because of his book.
Perhaps one of his best pieces of advice was simply to get people to talk, or even brag, about themselves.
He was quoted, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
It turns out that Carnegie was correct, right down to the biological level.
A 2012 study conducted by neuroscientists Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell at Harvard University entitled “Disclosing Information About the Self Is Intrinsically Rewarding” found that our urge to share personal information with others is one of the most fundamental and powerful parts of being human.
Brain images showed that sharing information about ourselves triggers the same sensations in our brains that we experience when we eat food and have sex—two behaviors that we are biologically compelled to do.
Thus, it seems we are biologically compelled to share and communicate our thoughts.
One method the researchers used to determine how much the participants valued being able to talk about themselves was to offer a modest financial incentive to anybody who would answer questions about other people instead.
Some of the questions involved casual subjects such as hobbies and personal tastes while others covered personality traits, such as intelligence, curiosity, or aggression.
The researchers found that many of the participants were willing to pass up on the money, preferring the rewarding feelings of self-disclosure over financial gain.
In fact, the average participant gave up between 17 and 25 percent of their possible earnings just so that they could reveal personal information.
Researchers then used a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner (fMRI) to observe what parts of the brain were most excited when the subjects were talking about themselves.
Again, they found a correlation between self-disclosure and heightened activity in brain regions belonging to the mesolimbic dopamine system—the same region that’s associated with the satisfying feeling we get from food, money, and sex.
This increased brain activity even happens when we speak about ourselves without anyone listening to us.
Of course, there is a far more powerful effect when our listening skills come into play.
Unconscious Obstacles
If there’s so much value in being a good listener, why are so few people actually good at it?
Instead of thinking in terms of skills or attributes you lack, think instead of the barriers that keep you from truly listening to another person.
All the skills and techniques in the world won’t help if we still retain false beliefs, habits and blind spots that get in the way of real connection and empathy.
It would be like owning a boat and being an expert seaman, but having a deathly fear of the water.
Some things just overshadow others.
Let’s take a closer look at what some of these barriers might be.
Think about the poor listeners you may have encountered in your own life.
What made you feel they weren’t listening to you?
Perhaps the biggest problem may be their inability to look outside of themselves and their own needs.
This doesn’t mean that they have real or actual needs, it simply means that they are focused only on themselves and their reality.
Good conversation is like a tennis match where the attention moves equally between the two parties, like a tennis ball.
If someone is never able to truly put their attention on anything other than themselves, it’s like playing tennis with a person who never properly serves the ball, or never returns it once it goes over the net.
A conversation suddenly turns into a monologue, soliloquy, or simply a lecture to an unwilling student.
So-called “conversational narcissism” may look on its surface like a regular conversation, but on closer inspection it actually resembles two people spouting monologues in close proximity to one another!
In a way, good conversation is a dying art precisely because people feel more isolated than ever before.
With so many people missing the feeling of being truly heard themselves, they crave attention and to be in the spotlight, having others listen closely to them.
The sad irony is that such a person can bring a selfish, even competitive attitude to an activity that is supposed to be mutually beneficial.
And thus the cycle continues and grows even worse over time, spurred on by feelings of not being heard or paid attention to.
Using a conversation as a platform to win attention and stroke your ego is undoubtedly a losing strategy.
Have you ever quietly waited for someone to stop speaking, thinking all the while about what you would say the moment they shut up?
If so, you’ve likely been guilty of conversational narcissism too!
It is still the inability to put aside your own internal monologue completely, and focus on what the other person is thinking or saying.
Same end outcome of dueling monologues.
So to start with, improve your listening skills by being vigilant about the ways in which craving attention can make you a worse conversationalist.
The idea is not to always seek to turn attention to yourself.
Conversations should be thought of not as a means to win attention, but to share it enjoyably with someone else.
The goal is not competition for the floor, but cooperation with an ally.
The purpose is to collaborate, not express solely.
The aim is to learn, not teach, and so on.
For some of us, this may require a complete re-tooling of what we seek when we want to be social.
After an ineffective conversation, people may feel depleted, bored, or even more alone.
Good conversations, on the other hand, can be things of beauty, allowing both participants to create between them something bigger than the sum of its parts.
And remember how much people were willing to pay to be heard and express themselves in the study referenced earlier in this very chapter?
Listening well requires that you suspend your own self-interest and ego and gracefully allow someone else to shine.
It’s now time to get self-conscious and introspective.
Sociologist Charles Derber has studied this phenomenon extensively and believes that this form of conversational narcissism can occur without people even being aware it’s going on.
It can be easy to imagine that conversational narcissists are the stereotypical loudmouths who dominate conversation—but it’s far subtler than this.
It turns out that the situation can turn on a single word choice.
He articulated what he called support responses and shift responses, and how they can subtly pervade our everyday vocabulary.
Derber explains what he calls “initiatives” in conversation—which can be attention giving or attention seeking, the latter of which can be further divided into active or passive.
For our purposes, you can guess which of the two we want to orient toward.
Let’s look at some examples of both in conversation.
For the active, attention-giving variety, a “support response” maintains attention on the speaker and their topic—for example, asking a question about what’s been said.
Support responses can be simple acknowledgements (“Oh really?” “Uh huh”), positively supporting (“that’s great!”), or in question form (“What did you say then?”).
For instance:
“I love French films.”
“Which is your favorite?”
The “shift response,” however, is an active attention-seeking response that shifts the attention to the other person, in other words back to themselves.
It’s an act of grabbing the spotlight and pointing it in the opposite direction.
“I love French films.”
“Yeah?
I’ve never cared much about movies.
The other day, actually, I saw this thing at the cinema…”
This isn’t to say that shift responses are always wrong—in context, they can work, especially if the other person subtly reclaims attention again.
Sometimes it might even behoove you to use more shift responses to grab some of the spotlight, or make your feelings known.
But how much are you using them?
If you have two people with poor listening skills, and both are hell-bent on shift responses, you end up with a wrestling match for attention, rather than a conversation.
Maybe both parties are satisfying their lust for expression, but their gas tanks for being heard are running on empty.
You may not notice if you are locked in this type of battle, but from the outside looking in, observing this kind of interaction can be curious and confusing.
Moreover, if a bad conversationalist (someone who continually uses shift responses) is paired with a very empathetic listener (someone who continually uses support responses), one party may well feel as though they’re having a good talk because the other person is consistently offering support responses, while the other wants to jump off a bridge because the conversation is turning into an awkward pseudo-lecture on the other person’s life and beliefs.
What about passive conversational narcissism?
Naturally, some people are still quite aware of social norms and etiquette and so will vie for attention in subtler ways.
One way of doing this is to fail to offer support responses, waiting till the other person’s thread dies away and you can take the limelight.
Here, you are hoping that the other person runs out of steam so you can finally get your word in.
It is like sitting in a tree and waiting for the prey to get tired and go to sleep—you know it will happen eventually, so you passively bide your time.
Have you been part of a conversation where the other person didn’t offer any support responses, even a quaint “Oh really?” or “Uh-huh”?
You’re not quite sure whether they’ve taken in what you’ve said, and that may be intentional on their part.
It may have been a case of passive conversational narcissism.
Most of us are taught that it’s polite to not ramble on, to take your turn and then rest, and to share space in conversations.
Fine, this person will follow those basic rules.
But they sure won’t encourage their conversation partner to speak more, lest it cut into their own speaking time!
A lack of (genuine!)
feedback from the other person can quickly make someone feel they ought to stop speaking—and this is where the conversational narcissist steps back into the picture.
Though it’s tempting to try to catch other people in the act of conversational narcissism, its far more productive to learn to notice it in yourself and guard against it.
You can’t control what others do, but you can control your actions and how good of a listener you are.
After all, that is the goal of this book.
For the other purpose, you may want to seek a book on persuasion or hypnosis.
The irony is it’s often those who are able to listen well, to step aside, and to take a genuine interest in their conversation partners who become people we think of as most interesting, charismatic and worthy of our attention in the first place.
So the purported goal of conversational narcissism (making darn sure that people know things about you) isn’t even satisfied.
Oops.
Luckily, there are a few guidelines to battle these unconscious obstacles you’ll undoubtedly face.
Balance your needs and desires with other people’s
To do this, you first need to be aware of your focus and where it’s going.
Pay attention to how the airtime is being distributed.
Is one person doing all the talking?
Is there a back-and-forth?
This requires more than just playing at being interested in another person’s life—you genuinely need to forget yourself for a moment and engage fully, and honestly, in what someone else is saying.
Stop thinking about your response for the future, and pay attention to what someone is currently saying to you.
This means no rushing in to explain or frame what they’ve said so that it relates back to you again.
Give more supportive responses, and guard against constantly referring every topic back to yourself.
Ask questions to invite the other person to say more.
If you take attention for a while, enjoy it—but volley it back again.
Like we were taught as children: It’s good to share!
“As you were talking, it made me think about this experience I had once, where XYZ.
That made me wonder, did you find that XYZ was the case as well?” A person saying this demonstrates that they’re willing to share the conversation, rather than hog it all for themselves.
Think about ego, power, self-esteem and control
Those who seem most boastful in a conversation, who jealously guard attention or speak over others, are often those who feel most insecure in themselves.
Their need to control the conversation comes from a hunger for attention and approval.
If you find yourself using conversations as a platform to boost your ego, feel better about yourself or be witnessed and supported by others, your work may be to learn to be comfortable taking the back seat for a change.
The paradox is that people who seem most likeable and confident are those who don’t appear to be making frantic efforts to dominate others’ attention.
Be egalitarian
Do you have any unconscious beliefs about what conversations are actually for?
Some people speak because they want a soapbox to share their opinions, or they want to “teach” others and tell them exactly what’s what, or simply to demonstrate superiority in some way or another.
Become aware of why you’re conversing.
Are you genuinely curious about the human being in front of you?
Have you already made up your mind about them, or do you simply see them as an audience for your agenda (which you refuse to stray from), a sparring partner, a competitor?
Good listeners stay in the moment, and don’t get distracted with their own concerns when they’re meant to be focused on someone else.
Try to treat conversations as pleasurable opportunities to give and take, and to witness another as much as revealing oneself.
Does it frequently end up being the case that your conversation partners know a ton about you, but you don’t know very much about them?
This would mean that the flow of information is decidedly one-sided, and that you are monopolizing the air space.
Do you actually ask others questions?
When is the last time you asked five questions in a row?
All of this leads us round again to the most important conversation skill—listening.
Great communicators tend to speak less than poor communicators.
Though the ego might not like it, the truth is that you don’t become a good conversationalist by telling the best jokes or stories, by being the most interesting or impressive, or by speaking the most.
You do it by being humble, friendly, and intrigued by how interesting other people are.
The secret is to be more interested than interesting.
Learn, rather than teach.
Listen, rather than speak.
Allow others to express, knowing there’s enough to go around.
Connect rather than impress.
Share or participate in a story, rather than merely telling it.
But They’re Boring…
No, you are.
You may have read through the previous sections and wondered how realistic it is to be completely enthralled with what another person is saying.
It can certainly make people feel good to be the center of your attention, but what if you literally don’t feel it?
It’s not a great thing to admit, but many of us secretly think that other people simply aren’t that interesting, and it’s hard to care about what they have to say.
It’s tempting to look at the work it takes to listen to someone’s seemingly mundane story and decide you’d rather not bother.
We can sometimes miss the point.
Sometimes, it’s a question of unrealistic expectations.
A conversation doesn’t necessarily have to blow your socks off or be massively useful to you to be worth taking part in.
And of course it’s normal to not be interested in literally everyone you meet—some people will spark curiosity, others less so.
Finally, it’s not necessary at all to fake it, or act in ways that drain and bore you.
Frankly, it is possible to be a warm and friendly person with a good social life who doesn’t launch into ecstatic conversation with everyone they encounter.
But here’s where socially successful people have a subtler understanding than those who love calling themselves introverts or feel like other people are boring and not worth their time.
Have a little faith, suspend judgment and—again—just listen.
Drop any preconceived ideas about what makes a person interesting—some of the most fascinating people are out there, just a few pointed questions away from being discovered.
Be open to being proven wrong, to being surprised.
Decide to actively look for the good and the interesting in others.
It’s an old adage that “you can learn something from everyone,” and it’s true.
Look at conversation as a means of finding out exactly what that thing is.
If you immediately judge someone as uninteresting, they will undoubtedly remain that for you.
Judge them differently, and they will become that as well.
Use this to your advantage.
It’s rude to assume people are boring simply because they don’t wow you after a few minutes, especially when you may be assisting in it by lobbing boring questions at them.
This in itself can be rather narcissistic—to think of other people in terms of their entertainment value to you, rather than as individuals in their own right.
When you don’t really know someone, it’s hard to be concerned about the mundane details of their lives, but you’d certainly care more if they were very important people to you.
The idea is that people are not boring, exactly, but just that you don’t know them well enough to care.
You can see the catch-22—you can only get to know someone if you first go through the “boring” small talk and try to forge a closer connection.
Being sociable is something that builds on itself.
It starts with extending a gesture of goodwill to the other person.
You don’t know that they’re interesting, but you hope and expect they are, and you reach out in faith that your investment will be worth it later on.
In other words, some people enter conversations expecting an immediate payoff, whereas in reality it’s more common that you need to invest a little first, and wait patiently for a reward that may take a while.
You don’t need to force anything.
Just be open and receptive and give it a go—at least for a while.
Even if you never uncover something of interest in talking to another person, you can still do so with compassion and politeness, and you may just learn something about yourself in the process—how to be a better conversationalist, for one.
Some people will take more than one conversation to open up.
Do your part by building trust and rapport, asking questions and listening.
You may be surprised what happens if you have the expectation that you will find something delightful or fascinating.
People can have unexpected hobbies or completely out-there experiences, skills, values, and so on that may be of interest to you even though some other parts of their life aren’t.
Don’t be afraid to push a little and ask questions that invite more intimacy.
Go beyond the surface and ask how your conversation partner feels about certain things.
You can always divulge a little about yourself first to put them at ease.
Along this vein, you might need to “go first” sometimes when opening up with people.
Give unexpected answers, be truthful and make an effort at being honest and genuine.
People are often more than willing to respond in kind.
If you’re still not convinced that anyone has anything interesting to tell you, it may legitimately be a case of not hanging around with the right kinds of people.
You may need to seek conversations with those you have more in common with than coworkers, fellow students or even family members—who might be easily available conversation partners, but won’t necessarily be your “people.”
Sometimes, broadening yourself and the range of things that interest you has the effect of making other people seem more interesting.
Dabble, take risks, and avoid assuming you know what things are before you try them.
Failing to properly listen to others could be part of a broader discomfort around other people, feelings of low self-worth, depression, anxiety or an unhappiness in your own life.
People who have been bullied or mistreated by others can take a haughty, condescending tone as a defense mechanism, or a way to cover up the fact that they feel it’s others who don’t like them.
As we’ve already seen, having the perspective that others are enemies or rivals can kill a social life.
Finally, feeling disinterested in others can simply be a phase of life, a period of immaturity or a result of being a certain age or living in a certain environment.
Younger people can often consider something worthless unless they can personally get something out of it—it takes experience and wisdom to move away from this self-interest and toward healthy relationships with others.
All Hail Conan
I’ve found that the absolute best mindset to emulate for deep listening is that of a talk-show host—Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’Brien, whoever your favorite is, they all do the same thing.
Just ask yourself what they would do if you’re struggling for what curiosity looks like and how you can wield it.
Conan O’Brien happens to be my favorite, so let’s think about the traits he embodies in a conversation with a guest on his show.
Visualize his studio.
He’s got a big open space, and he is seated at a desk.
His guest is seated at a chair adjacent to the desk, and it’s literally like they exist in a world of their own.
When Conan has a guest on his show, that guest is the center of his world for the next ten minutes.
They are the most interesting person he has ever come across, everything they say is spellbinding, he is insatiably curious about their stories, and he reacts to anything they say with an uproarious laugh and an otherwise exaggerated reaction that they were seeking.
He is charmingly positive and can always find a humorous spin on a negative aspect of a story.
His sole purpose is to make his guest comfortable on the show, encourage them to talk about themselves, and ultimately make them feel good and look good.
In turn, this makes them share things they might not otherwise reveal and creates a connection and chemistry that is so important for a talk show.
The viewers at home are desperate to learn about this celebrity guest, so Conan acts as a proxy for their curiosity.
Also, the viewers can tell in an instant if either party is mailing it in or faking it, so Conan’s job literally depends on his ability to use his curiosity to connect on a deeper level.
Even with grumpy or more quiet guests, he is able to elevate their energy levels and attitudes simply by being intensely interested in them (at an energy level slightly above theirs) and encouraging them by giving the great reactions they seek.
It’s almost as if he plays the game “How little can I say to get the most out of people?”
Of course, in your life, this applies to those people you come across that are like pulling teeth to talk to.
A little bit of friendly encouragement and affirmation can make even the meekest clam open up.
Numerous questions, directing the conversation toward them, and the feeling that you actually care are also integral.
Imagine the relief you can create at dreaded networking events.
People like those who like them, so when you react the way they want, it encourages them to be more outgoing and open with you.
Another talk-show host would later go on the record lamenting how often he disliked his guests and how boring he found the actors and actresses that he would be forced to speak to.
But that’s a testament to how highly trained his habit of curiosity was.
He started by making a conscious decision to be curious, built the habit, and engaged his guests easily; do you think his guests could tell if he was truly interested or not?
Never.
Curiosity allows people to feel comfortable enough to speak freely beyond a superficial level—because you are demonstrating that you care and that you will listen when they open up.
People won’t be inclined to reveal their secret thoughts if they think they’ll be met with apathy, after all.
So even if you have to fake it till you make it, Conan O’Brien is who your mindset and attitude should feel like.
In case Conan O’Brien’s curiosity still isn’t coming naturally to you, here are some more specific patterns of thought you can use to improve your people skills.
I wonder what they are like?
When you start to wonder about the other person, it changes your perspective on them completely.
This is an inkling of curiosity.
You start to care about them—not only about their shallow traits, such as their occupation or how their day is going, but what motivates them and makes them act in the way they do.
Having a sense of wonder about someone is one of the most powerful mindsets you can possess because it makes you want to scratch your itch.
Scratching the itch of curiosity will become secondary to everything else because you simply want to know about the other person.
Suppose you had a sense of wonder about computers as a child.
You probably irritated others with how many questions you asked anyone that seemed to have knowledge about computers.
Now as an adult, what kind of attention span are you going to devote to computers, and what kind of questions are you going to ask?
You are going to skip the small-talk interview questions and get right down to the details because it’s what you care and are curious about.
Keeping the mindset of wonderment will completely change the way you interact with people because you will suddenly care, and much of the time, we don’t notice that we don’t care about the person we are talking to.
You’ll dig deeper and deeper until you can put together a picture of what you are wondering about.
What can they teach me?
Don’t read this from the perspective of attempting to gain what you can from someone.
Instead see others as being people worthy of your attention.
Everyone has valuable knowledge, whether it applies to your life or not.
Everyone is great at something, and everyone is a domain expert in something that you are not, no matter how small or obscure the subject.
The main point is to ignite an interest in the other person as opposed to an apathetic approach.
Imagine if you were a huge skiing junkie and you met someone who used to be a professional skier.
They may have even reached the Olympics in their prime.
What will follow?
You’ll be thrilled by what you can potentially learn and gain from the other person, and that will guide the entire interaction.
Again, there will be a level of interest and engagement if you view others as worthy of talking to.
But you’ll never know unless you dig below the surface.
Whether we like to admit it or not, sometimes we feel some people are not worth our time.
It’s a bad habit, and this line of thinking is one of the first steps toward breaking it.
Everyone is worth our time, but we won’t be able to discover it if we don’t put in the work.
What do we have in common?
This is an investigation into the life experiences you share with someone.
It instantly makes them more engaging and interesting—because we feel that they are more similar to us!
It may sound a bit egotistical, but we are undoubtedly more captivated by people who share our same views and interests.
Finding commonalities may even elevate people, especially if we are surrounded by people different from us.
For instance, if you discovered that a new stranger was born in the same hospital as you were, despite being in a different country, you would instantly feel more open to them.
This person must share similar worldviews, values, and humor.
But you wouldn’t have discovered that if you didn’t make an attempt at excavating beneath the surface.
You will need to go on a hunt, and you will ask the important questions that get you where you want to be.
You might jump from topic to topic, or you might dive in and ask directly.
Perhaps it’s just because you will have something to fixate on besides talking for talking’s sake, but these attitudes will drastically change how you approach people.
Curiosity can still be tough to maintain, which is why my final suggestion for creating curiosity is to make a game of it.
Your goal is to learn as much about the other person as possible.
Alternatively, assume there is something extremely thrilling and exciting about the other person and make it your quest to uncover it.
Eventually, you’ll find what you’re looking for.
The next time you go out to a café or store, put these attitudes to the test with the captive audience of the baristas or cashiers you come across—the lucky few who are paid to be nice to you.
Do you perceive these workers to be below you, or do you treat them differently than you would a good friend?
Do you have a sense of wonderment and curiosity about them?
What do you think they can teach you, and what do you have in common with them?
Do you tend to ask the baristas or cashiers about their day and actually care about their answer?
If not, do you think you’ll be able to simply “turn it on” when you’re around people you care about?
Practice changing your mindsets concerning the people around you.
It’s the easiest practice you’ll have because you don’t have to lift a finger, but it drastically transforms the quality of relationships you’ll create.
We've been chatting about an important topic, how to become a better listener, and take our relationships to the next level.
Let's take a moment to review the key takeaways from this episode.
We've all got two ears, but only one mouth, right?
This means we should do about double the listening versus speaking.
But the truth is, doing so goes against our natural instinct.
We're wired to express and to talk about ourselves, to the extent that it provides the same type of neurological stimulation as sex.
Fair enough.
But that doesn't mean talking non-stop is acceptable or helpful to our relationships.
It's time to view listening as the true win-win in cultivating deeper relationships.
When you listen, you not only get to learn about someone, you are paradoxically to some seen as more charismatic, more interesting, and more enjoyable to interact with.
So if your end goal is to be those things, listening is the skill you must perfect.
It's a simple skill, but certainly nothing close to easy.
The challenge is that there are so many unconscious ways we rest control over a conversation and become a conversational narcissist.
This is simply someone who, when someone speaks so much that it appears to be a monologue versus a shared dialogue, one subtle way this occurs is through support versus shift responses, where the feeling you impart to others can hinge on a single vocabulary choice.
The underlying theme, however, is to accept letting go of control, pride, and ego, and go wherever someone else wishes to go.
A more conscious obstacle many people face is the feeling that the people they interact with are quite boring and have nothing worthwhile to say, thus listening to them is not a good use of their time.
Just reading that sentence, you should be able to spot a few flaws.
If you think most people you run across are boring, you're the boring one.
You're letting a prejudgment dictate your actions and ruin your interactions.
Instead, expect that you'll find something fascinating and delightful, and that's just what will begin to happen.
For a role model on how to draw information out of people, look no further than late night talk show hosts.
Their sole job is to make a celebrity, often no funnier than you or I, appear immensely charming and intelligent.
That's a tough task sometimes.
Think about the energy, focus, attention, and listening they employ to make this happen.
That's what is possible.
In conclusion, let's embrace the art of active and mindful listening as a powerful tool in our daily lives.
By shifting our focus towards understanding others, we don't only foster deeper connections, but also cultivate a more engaging and a more charismatic presence.
Remember, it's in giving up control and ego that true growth lies.
Believe this quote from Lao Tzu, the wise man does not speak.
He listens.